FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CANCER - PAGE 2

Just before getting into the morning shower, I stop at my scale and stare at it. I'm not afraid of what the numbers say but of the emotions that come with the read out. With great trepidation, I take off my robe, step on the metal monster, close my eyes and wait for a minute to see where my weight is at this week. It's been almost a year since I've had surgery and I am still in a bit of shock over losing 122 pounds in the past year. For me, it's been a journey of epic proportions.

Just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, there's a new book, The 10 Best Questions for Surviving Breast Cancer: The Script You Need to Take Control of Your Health (Fireside/Simon and Schuster; $15). Answers are based on research and interviews with experts, advocates and survivors. A sample: "How long do I have to make decisions about surgery and treatments?" Author Dede Bonner is on the faculty at George Washington University. Liz Doup

Can anyone enlighten me with regard to the recent comment made by Martin Sheen, father of the infamous Charlie Sheen, where he equated his son's drug habit as being the same as a person with cancer. How can he have made such a statement, when doing drugs is a person's choice, whereas cancer is something that no one makes a concerted effort to get? I'm surprised that those people who either have someone with, or they themselves live with, cancer have not been up in arms over this statement.

A recent concert at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach benefitted organizations working to help children with cancer. Music 4 Miracles, a new South Florida nonprofit, organized the "Already An Angel" benefit at the race park's MI-VI club. "Our mission is to raise awareness and financial support for charitable organizations through the art of music," said Music 4 Miracles president Kristi Huddleston. The event featured local singers, dancers and an aerial artist, and sign language interpretation was available for the hearing impaired.

I can not understand why no definite answer has been given to The Acreage residents regarding if there is a relationship involving their water and cancer. This has been dragging on since last June. It would appear someone is not doing their job and shrugging this problem off. Why are there not more government agencies involved? I would assume if a politician lived in The Acreage, an answer would have been given months ago. Martin S. Margulis, Boynton Beach

Personally, I'm not worked up about Pembroke Pines' resolution to warn people about a possible link between cellphone use and cancer. I'm not worked up about it because nobody will be. It's useless. People aren't going to stop using cellphones. They aren't going to put their cellphones on speaker phone, or keep them further fromt heir head. And there is no real research that definitively links cellphone use to cancer. But Pembroke Pines thought this was an important resolution because a resident linked the possibility of cellphone use to cancer.

Debra Haslem, the mother of Heat forward Udonis Haslem, died of cancer over the weekend at age 53. Haslem had battled drug abuse while Udonis was growing up, and Udonis' stepmother Barbara Wooten was largely responsible for raising him. But after seeking treatment in 2001, Debra Haslem remained clean for nearly a decade, reconciled with her son, became close with Barbara and began speaking at treatment centers. Early in 2009, doctors discovered a tumor wrapped around Debra's urethra, and the Hallandale resident moved into Udonis' Weston home after surgery.

With a clean bill of health from her gynecologist after an uneventful yearly checkup, Linda Botwinick came to the same comfortable conclusion many women do: that she didn't have to worry about her gynecologic health for another year. It was a dangerous assumption that could have proven deadly. Except that Botwinick did what far too many would not: She listened to the persistent pestering of her family pet — a repetitive, agitated signal that alerted the 65-year-old West Boca woman to a growing tumor missed by all the advanced tools of modern science.

The humble papaya is gaining credibility in Western medicine for anticancer powers that folk cultures have recognized for generations. University of Florida researcher Nam Dang, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in Japan have documented papaya's dramatic anticancer effect against a broad range of lab-grown tumors, including cancers of the cervix, breast, liver, lung and pancreas. The researchers used an extract made from dried papaya leaves, and the anticancer effects were stronger when cells received larger doses of the tea. In a paper published in the Feb. 17, 2010 issue of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology , Dang and his colleagues also documented for the first time that papaya leaf extract boosts the production of key signaling molecules called Th1-type cytokines.

Shanee Moret-Barreto turned 21 earlier this year and threw a party, a birthday bash at the La Quinta Inn in Coral Springs. But the Florida Atlantic University student wasn't thinking only of herself. She saw to it that the real guest of honor was 3-year-old Bianca Jaimes. Bianca is up against an unusual form of cancer known as bilateral Wilms tumor. A cancer of the kidneys, it is the same malignancy that nearly killed Moret-Barreto a couple of decades ago. "When I was born, my kidneys were over large," Moret-Barreto said.